The Hive Recap: Variation Under Nature

Finding out you’re a human clone is packed with psychological, moral and ethical issues. Sarah’s key conflicts in Season 1 include accepting the fact that human clones can exist, that she is one, and that she has to come to terms – as they all do – with some form of relationship to all the others. Our clones’ shared DNA means they share a common dilemma: who should they trust with the fact of their existence?

To be a human clone in 2013 means you are a living body of evidence, proof of a great scientific accomplishment that is also a crime: someone somewhere broke the international scientific moratorium on human cloning, way back on the very day you came into being.

Human cloning is not illegal in all countries, but it is banned in most. After the birth of Dolly the Sheep, and in consideration of humanity’s sketchy history with abusing science to ‘improve’ our species, the world’s more ethical cloning enthusiasts agreed that developing a human clone – after about 300 failed attempts to get one sheep – wouldn’t be right, on all kinds of levels.

Thus, we have Alison’s theory: ‘someone is wiping them out, covering their tracks.’ The surprise is, just who the clones’ assassin turns out to be.

As a grifter-clone, Sarah’s predicament is especially complicated, morally. Being a clone allows her to pose as Beth, and shadow the police hunt for Katja’s murderer. But the clones too have been ‘covering their tracks’, to protect their own identities and privacy. Sarah – who has faked her own death – buries Katja before she had any idea of what was truly at stake. A traditional cover-up plot might hammer away at the consequences of Sarah’s own physical evidence, posited at the scene. But in a real-world clone-related crime, the victim herself could expose their secret. Katja’s fingerprints, DNA, crushed face (when reconstructed) could expose Sarah Manning, Beth Childs – or any one of the clones whom Beth was originally able to identify using police databases and facial recognition programs.

There is nothing like a common enemy to forge an unlikely alliance. The only people our clones can truly trust with their unprecedented reality at this point is one another. While Sarah and Alison are hellbent on keeping this stuff out of their own lives and plans, the assassin forces them to confront the situation together. Familiarity can breed contempt …and vital insights; thanks to their individual strengths, skills and resources. They’ll set out together to stop their own slaughter, and ideally discover the truth about their origins. But can they do all that and not expose their loved ones to the explosive truth about themselves?

Sarah playing cop clone, Beth.

As Sarah slips in and out of Beth’s skin, thanks to Cosima’s scientific advice and support, she can’t avoid entangling herself with both Art and Paul. Beth put her life on the line for the clones, for their Truth. As strong as she was, Beth did not survive the quest. Is Sarah really equipped to fill her shoes? And when will her own deceptions catch up with her?